


Live to See Such Times

by purajobot935



Series: In Another Time [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Angst, As is Kili, Canonical Character Death, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Memories, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pippin is smarter than he looks, Platonic Relationships, Slight Canon Divergence, fading, romantic relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purajobot935/pseuds/purajobot935
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been over seven decades since the Battle of Five Armies, but that's just a blink of an eye to an elf still in mourning. Worried for his son, Thranduil takes a little drastic action, hoping Legolas will remember what it is to live. Then there's that pesky ring that keeps trying to seduce him, a mad chase over endless plains, confronting ghosts, and of course more orcs to fight. There's also Pippin, who reminds Legolas just a little bit of a certain dwarf and a very cold Fell Winter. </p><p>Sequel to "When Time Stands Still". Might have to read that one to understand some of what happens in this.<br/>Rating might go up for events in later chapters</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Third Age, 3018  
Mirkwood**

“Elrond of Imladris has called a council.”

Legolas sighed and set down the scroll he had been reading, wishing his father would stop coming into his chambers, each time with some new reason for him to leave the kingdom and go back out into the world.

“What does he want?”

“He requests we send an envoy to represent the people of the Greenwood. He says little else, save that it concerns the Enemy and all will be explained at the council.”

The prince picked up his scroll again. “Send Tauriel… or one of your advisors.”

“I am sending you.”

“No.”

Thranduil sighed heavily and moved further into the room till he stood beside his son. “Legolas, this is important. They also need to know of the creature’s escape.”

Legolas frowned. “If it is so important, then you go.”

“You know I cannot do that. With the evil in Dol Guldur stirring and the unrest in the East, I have to stay here to ensure the sanctity of the realm. I would trust this to no other.”

“I am sorry, Father, but I cannot go.”

_“You’ll have others who will need you.”_

The Elvenking sat on the bed nearby. “I worry for you, my son. You have not set foot outside the realm in many years. It does you no good to remain in isolation like this.”

“And I have told you before, I have no desire to associate with… mortals… anymore,” Legolas replied. “There is no good that comes from it.” 

“Legolas, this is absurd. It has been 77 years since Ki-.”

“Do not say his name,” the prince cut him off. “You do not get to say his name.”

But Thranduil saw the way his son’s hand balled into a tightly clenched fist; the way his blue eyes shone in the golden light of the room. “You need to work past this grief or you will fade.”

“77 years. That was how old he was when he…” Legolas could not finish the sentence. “There was so much that he never got to do. Do you know how unfair it is? That I have lived years that he never got to have?”

“This is not what he would have wanted for you.”

_“You’re stronger than this…”_

“You don’t know what he wanted from me. You threw him in a dungeon.” Legolas tossed the scroll onto his desk, knocking over a few loose items, but not caring. “Please leave, Father. I will not discuss this anymore.”

Thranduil stood, frowning, though his eyes held an element of compassion and pity for what his son was going through, and what he was about to do. “Then you leave me no choice. Legolas of the Woodland Realm, will you hereby carry out your king’s order to set forth and attend the Council of Elrond?”

The prince’s eyes widened. Surely… “Father, please…”

“Will you, or will you not?”

There was a stubborn set to his son’s jaw that could only have been learnt from a Dwarf.

“So be it.” For a moment Thranduil’s shoulders sagged, before he straightened again. “Then I hereby exile you from the kingdom of the Greenwood. You are free to go where you wish, and do as you please, but not return to these Halls until you have learned to smile again.” He tried to ignore the betrayed look in his son’s eyes.

Legolas rose and bowed stiffly. “As my king wishes.”

The elder moved to leave the room, but stopped at the doorway. “This is not how you honor the passing of a loved one, Legolas. Kíli would not want you to remember him for how he died-” He ignored the wince his son gave at the mention of the name. “-but for how he lived. And I do not think he lived in this way.”

Thranduil took the dark longbow off the hooks on the wall and threw it to his son. Legolas caught it deftly out of pure instinct, feeling partly startled at how familiar it felt in his hands. He had not really used it since that fateful day.

_“You’ll have something to fight for.”_

……

“Dartho, Legolas!”*

The prince turned from where he was securing some packs to his horse’s back. “Tauriel.”

“I heard what happened with your father.”

“I would rather not speak of it. I will do as the king commands.” His voice was cold as he turned to check his water supplies.

“Where will you go?”

“I do not know yet. The Havens at last, perhaps. Maybe I will sail West.”

“Do not be a fool.” Tauriel frowned. “There is no returning from the Undying Lands, and there is much to be done here. Evil still dwells in these lands, is growing stronger.” She took a step to him. “Go to the Council as your father wishes. Take my place.”

Legolas turned back to his horse. “It is not my evil, nor is it my battle to fight. There is nothing binding me to this world.”

“Kíli would have fought.” Tauriel knew she was risking his wrath, but she continued even as he stiffened at the name. “Not because it was his battle, but because it would be the right thing to do. He would never have run away.”

_“I don’t care if he’s an elf.”_

The prince whirled around, eyes ablaze with anger, and behind that the powerful grief of one who had lost something precious to him.

“Do NOT speak of him as if you knew him; as if he meant something to you. You did not know him.” There was a quaver in his voice that he tried to suppress but didn’t quite manage.

The captain raised her voice in turn. “He was my friend, and I miss him also. I often think about how we might have been neighbors had he lived, the things we might have seen and done. He was brave to forge such friendships with those his kind considered enemies.”

_“He has a very big heart... and too much courage than is good for him.”_

Legolas pushed past her to lead his horse out of the stable. “Leave it, Tauriel.”

“You are a coward,” she said, and he stopped short. “You are so afraid of your own grief you’ve decided to shut yourself away from everyone and everything around you, because you are scared of hurting again.”

“Mortal life is so short, and they die so easily,” Legolas said, so softly that only Elven ears could have heard him. “So what is the point?”

“The point is they LIVE, which is something you need to learn to do again; because right now, you are only existing.” Tauriel strode up to him. “Kíli may not be here.” Then she poked him in the chest. “But he’s still in here, with you.”

_“Won’t completely abandon you.”_

Legolas felt his heart twitch with a twinge of pain and yet also a familiar warmth. His proud shoulders drooped a little and he leaned on his horse. “I think of him, too. Every day.” He swung himself onto his horse’s back. “And sometimes I think I hear him whispering.”

“Then let him guide your heart.”

“Perhaps I will.”

~~~~~~~~~~

* "Wait, Legolas!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Third Age, 2911  
Eriador**

“Are you going somewhere?”

Legolas paused midway as he tried to maneuver his quiver onto his back using only his good arm, and glanced over his shoulder to see Kíli standing just inside the door. The young dwarf’s eyes took in his fully dressed state – travel clothes and boots – and his brows creased into a frown, shadowing the hurt look in his brown eyes.

“I do not want to over stay my welcome,” Legolas replied, looking quickly away from him. “Though I am in your debt for your kindness and aid.”

“Don’t.”

Legolas looked up. “Pardon?”

“I know Elves pride themselves on being calm and collected and able to switch off their emotions, but don’t make it sound so cold. Just don’t.”

The elf set his quiver back down and looked at the dwarf, some warmth coming back into him as he finally met Kíli’s eyes. “I am sorry, but I know it is hard for you and your brother to have me here, seeing as how I am what I am and your people do not take kindly to it.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Well, I don’t know how not to!” Legolas threw his good hand up in the air as some emotion crept into his voice, and then winced as the motion pulled on a few of the still-healing wounds.

Kíli sighed as he came further into the room. “Take off all that nonsense and get back into bed so I can check on those dressings.”

He busied himself by putting some water over the fire to heat and taking out some fresh cloths and bandages out of the small cupboard by the bed. Legolas however made no move to do as Kíli asked and simply stood where he was, watching him, while within him his heart and his mind warred with each other on the best course of action.

“I swear you sound like Fíli,” the dwarf continued to talk. “You both seem to think that I care about what people will think, just because our ancestors don’t like each other. I don’t. I’m not them, neither are you, and the sooner you all realized that, the easier my life would be. There are enough troubles in Middle-earth right now, with this winter and those horrible wargs, without re-firing old histories that neither of us were alive to see.”

In his heart, Legolas silently agreed with him. “Sometimes I forget you are only 47.”

“Sometimes I think the legendary hearing of the Elves is a myth. Sit down and take off those boots.”

He wanted to. He very much wanted to. But even as his heart was inclined to steer him back to where the bed was, his head told him he should just leave now before he got any more used to the dwarf’s company.

“Kíli, it is not fair to you. To have your own people turn away from you because you chose to show kindness to me is not something I could bear to see happen to you.”

“There’s a blizzard going on right now.” Kíli replied as if he in turn had not heard what the elf had said. “You’d probably turn into an elf-sicle the minute you stepped outside. And we don’t have much firewood to keep the house warm if you go and open the door and let the cold air in.”

Legolas almost smiled as his heart rejoiced in its victory, sitting on the bed and tugging off his boots while Kíli poured the now hot water into a bowl and started soaking the strips of cloth. For the first time in the week and a day that he had been here, he noticed that the walls around him and the ground were stone, carefully hewn and smoothed, and kept the heat in to counter the chill that came in from outside and from the roof which was part stone and part wood.

Kíli brought the bowl of water to the bed and raised a brow at him, eyes drifting down to the shirt layers the elf wore, and Legolas sighed as he took off his overcoat and loosened the lacings of his under shirt to pull that off. He wasn’t sure why the tips of his ears grew slightly hot with his torso now bare – Kíli had seen him like this before, had seen him worse than this, and had always been the one to tend to his wounds.

So he was a little puzzled as to why his heart beat just a little bit faster when Kíli’s hands touched him as he opened, cleaned and re-dressed the warg marks that had yet to heal.

“Thank you,” he said, softly.

When Kíli looked up, the dwarf’s cheeks were flushed pink, though Legolas stubbornly told himself it was because he had been crouched close to the fireplace while the water heated.

“Let me and Fíli worry about our people,” he said. “You just focus on healing.”

~~~~~~~~~~

**Third Age, 3018  
Eriador**

It was said by every person that Legolas had known in his long life, that Imladris was supposed to be a place of healing and comfort; a place to lay down one’s burdens and rest, but as Legolas walked in the gardens for the first time in many years, he found his heart was still heavy and not even the beauty and peace of the Hidden Valley could fill the hole inside it.

The elves here had seen his sorrow. Of course they had. Many here had greater powers of perception than the lesser wood elves, and they sympathized. A few could even empathize with his loss, but Legolas was in no mood to speak to any of them.

They would all say the same things his father and Tauriel had said anyway.

So he had retreated to a quiet garden to be alone with his memories, briefly recalling the tale Kíli had told him 77 years ago of his own time in the Last Homely House. Legolas remembered it had involved quite a bit of broken elven furniture.

There was a crack of a branch, followed immediately by a thump and a pained curse.

Legolas spun around, hand instinctively reaching for a weapon he didn’t have, and his heart clenched painfully in his chest as he watched a small figure rise to his (rather furry) feet and rub his sore backside. A Halfling.

The hobbit finally seemed to realize that he was not alone and acknowledged the elf’s presence with a cheerful wave. “Oh. Hello!”

So young. He was so painfully young. And so mortal… Curly hair (darker than his blond, but lighter than brown), hazel eyes, and a bright smile so earnest and innocent that it reminded him with dismaying clarity of another like it. He suddenly realized the hobbit was speaking again.

“Are you alright?” The smile dimmed slightly in concern.

Shaking his head, Legolas regarded the hobbit. “Yes. Yes I’m fine. My greetings.”

“Only, you looked like you’d seen a ghost…. My name’s Pippin. Well, Peregrin Took is my full name, but most people call me Pippin.”

“I am called Legolas. Well met, Master Peregrin.”

Pippin walked over to him, head slightly inclined. “You’re not from here, are you? Your accent is a bit different and you’re dressed differently from the other elves here… and you seem a bit more… oh I don’t know… translucent would be the best way to describe it, I suppose.”

Translucent? “My home lies east, in the Greenwood,” Legolas replied, forcing a small smile onto his face, while within him his emotions swirled at how easily this hobbit spoke to him, as if they had been old friends. “You are a long way from home yourself.”

“I don’t mind a bit of adventure now and then, though it was a little scary when those black riders started to chase us, and Frodo got injured. Thank goodness we had Strider with us or I’m not sure what would have happened.”

_“There were trolls, and then we were chased by wargs and orcs. Thank goodness Gandalf was with us or I don’t know how we would have ended up.”_

Again, Legolas shook his head to try and dispel the memory. A light touch of a small hand on his arm drew him back. Pippin stood at his side, looking up at him in pure concern this time.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked. “You look so tired all of a sudden. I didn’t know Elves could get tired. And you seem sad. Can I get you some food? Food always makes things a bit better. I’ve got an apple or two with me that I managed to pluck before that branch broke.” He drew two plump red apples from his pockets and held one out to the elf before taking a bite of the other.

Legolas looked down at the offered fruit, a spark of warmth going through his heart at the hobbit’s generosity. “Thank you,” he said, taking the apple, but not eating it straight away. Instead, he gazed at it thoughtfully.

Kíli had loved apples. He had also loved sharing them.

Pippin patted his arm and dropped into the grass as he continued to eat, and after a moment, Legolas joined him, drawing his knees up to his chest and taking a small bite of the ripe fruit. They sat like that for a while, in companionable silence, each munching on his own apple until Pippin spoke up again.

“Why are you sad?”

“I miss someone,” Legolas replied after a while.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The sympathy was genuine, Legolas knew. “Did they go away?”

Legolas nodded. “A long time ago.”

“Then it’s okay to feel sad. Folk tell us we shouldn’t, but then why would we feel that way if we’re not supposed to feel it? Sometimes feeling sad for a while can make us feel better later.”

The elf had to wonder at the young hobbit’s seemingly apparent understanding of the situation, but before he could say anything in response, the grass rustled with approaching footsteps.

“Peregrin Took,” familiar gruff, but gentle voice called for his companion. They turned to find the familiar figure of Gandalf the Grey standing a few paces away from them. He smiled kindly at Legolas before eyeing the hobbit. “Don’t wear him out, Master Took. He is not yet used to Hobbit chatter. Your kindred also await you to start their evening meal.”

Pippin apparently knew a dismissal when he heard one, especially one that held a promise of food, for he stood up and dusted himself off before looking at Legolas. “Well, goodbye for now. I hope I’ll see you again.” With another wave, he ran off to find his friends.

“Hobbits.” Gandalf gave a long-suffering sigh as he moved to where Legolas had risen. “Remarkable creatures with a keen sense of perception… when they remember to use it.”

“Mithrandir.” Legolas acknowledged the Wizard. 

“I’m glad to see that you changed your mind, in the end.”

“What did he mean by ‘translucent’?”

Gandalf’s smile fell a little as he looked at the elf. “You are fading, my prince. You started to the day Kíli died. Your father does not see it because he wishes not to, but to anyone with keen sight, it is clear as day that you are not wholly in this world anymore.”

“Then why should I not follow him?” Legolas asked. “My heart longs for him, to see him again. Why should I stay here in torment?”

“Because it is not your time yet, young Greenleaf… and because Kíli had a dream, a goal he wanted to fulfill before his own life was too soon taken from us.” The wizard straightened. “You know what it is, otherwise you would not have come here, let alone chosen to stay.”

~~~~~~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be longer than it's prequel since all the "present" moments will cover what gaps I can find in between scenes from the LOTR trilogy. Still can't guarantee a happy ending given that I'm still writing it and I don't know where it's taking me, but stick with me and I guess we'll find out together.


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